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Mobile TV format spat gets nasty

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Mobile TV format spat gets nasty

Wednesday, 25 July 2007

FLO and DMB camps voice fierce opposition to EC selection of DVB-H for regional cell phone TV…

Opposition is growing to last week’s endorsement by the EC of Digital Video Broadcasting–Handheld (DVB-H) as the preferred cell phone TV standard for deployment across the region (click). Perhaps predictably the Media Forward Link Only (MediaFLO) camp doesn’t like it one bit. Nor does it sit well with the advocates of Terrestrial-Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB), who say they are ‘mystified’ by the initiative.

Qualcomm MediaFLO Technologies believes that the EC is missing the point in making the selection of DVB-H the ‘headline story’ of its support for mobile TV. “What problem is trying to be solved, what opportunity is being addressed by mandating a single standard at this stage? If DVB-H by virtue of its merits has taken the market by storm, then what’s really the point of mandating a standard anyway?” questions that company’s vp of business development Omar Javaid. “The fact is that we are at the early stages of the market and the biggest impediment…to commercial launch has been the lack of spectrum. This does not only not solve that problem (of harmonising and freeing up spectrum) it introduces a host of other ones as well. What it does is limit consumer choice and potentially disadvantage economically companies that are looking to become service providers and or work in various parts of the value chain.”

The FLO Forum, the body standardising MediaFLO technology, is likewise unimpressed by the EC initiative. Although the FLO Forum applauds the Commission’s efforts to advance the high potential mobile TV opportunity in Europe it believes that the Communication’s intention of favouring any one particular mobile TV technology for Europe could stall the advancement of a healthy regional mobile TV eco-system.

“The FLO Forum supports the principle of technology neutrality, which the major European industry groups have been calling on the Commission to respect. There is a reason why the principle of technology neutrality exists and that is to ensure that the market can choose which technology delivers the most attractive solution for the consumer. Each country has its own unique market conditions and each mobile broadcasting technology standard has very different performance characteristics. Locking the European market into one technology model is potentially harmful to the growth of mobile broadcasting in Europe and will hinder the development of innovative technologies,” judges FLO Forum president Dr Kamil A. Grajski. “Despite its youth, the mobile TV marketplace already offers multi-standard and multi-technology products and services - from chipsets to broadcast network transmission equipment. It is now cost-effective and routine to consider multi-modal mobile TV handsets. These developments should allow for the take up of attractive broadcasting services that will enable economies of scale. Technology is not the problem, but restriction of choice will be.”

Grajski isn’t persuaded, either, by the EC’s contention that its support for GSM at the end of the 1980s proves the benefit of a common standard. “The Commission’s support for DVB-H for mobile broadcasting in Europe is based, in part, on the suggestion that a mobile TV technology mandate, like the GSM mandate, is necessary to achieve economies of scale and to position European companies globally at the technology forefront. But the analogy is contrary to the market reality today,” he says. “The mobile TV industry is still in its early stages, but the GSM mandate came after GSM had launched with wide commercial success. Technology mandation for mobile TV in Europe is not supported by the facts.”

DMBerates EC too
Meantime members of WorldDMB – the international, non-governmental organisation tasked with promoting the awareness, adoption and implementation of Eureka 147 based technologies worldwide – say they continue to be mystified by the Commission’s continued unilateral support of DVB-H. They point out that T-DMB, an ETSI standard developed from the European-funded Eureka project and a derivative of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), has already been used for broadcasting mobile TV services in 14 European countries. According to the T-DMB camp, DMB is the world’s most successful mobile TV standard with millions of devices already in the market. It is widely used in Korea , and is the only European technology for mobile TV sanctioned by China ’s state regulator.

What particularly earns the ire of World DMB is the footnote to the EC’s DVB-H Communication that suggests that, prior to its DVB-H decision, the EC consulted with ‘all main industry players’ via an industry group – the European Mobile Broadcasting Council (EMBC) – but that these consultations went nowhere much. “What it doesn’t say is that it then ignored the counsel of the EMBC which advocated platform neutrality and recommended that the market should be allowed to decide for itself which technologies are best suited for broadcasting television, radio and data to mobile devices in Europe ”, reads a statement from WorldDMB. “It has also ignored the advice of device manufacturers who say that the need for only one technology is unnecessary as multi-standard devices are already available.”

“We, like most of the industry, have always advocated a multi-standard approach including DMB and DVB-H. WorldDMB and the DVB Forum are already collaborating because we recognise this is the only way Europe's citizens will be able to enjoy a variety of mobile services within the timescale the Commission would like” comments World DMB president Quentin Howard. “ Europe ’s citizens and economy will not benefit from EC intervention that restricts technology and innovation.”

World DMB then goes on to make a series of interesting assertions. These are that:

· Mandating DVB-H risks isolating Europe: WorldDMB members from across Europe including the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Denmark and Norway question whether the Commission has, in fact, failed to realise that mandating only DVB-H risks isolating Europe when the huge Asian markets of China and Korea - where most of Europe's mobile phones are manufactured - have already adopted DMB for mobile TV. Indeed, just last week, Italian public broadcaster RAI announced it has opted for DMB instead of DVB-H for mobile television services. Stefano Ciccotti, chief executive of network provider RaiWay said that a national DVB-H network would have cost €300mn. Extending the existing DMB network in Italy would cost just €8mn.

· The Commission fails to address barriers to interoperability: One of the Commission's key requirements is the desire for interoperability, i.e. the ability of a mobile TV device to work seamlessly in all 27 EU States. Quentin Howard says: “Interoperability is an ideal which has little to do with the old fashioned ideas about a single technology. One indisputable fact is that spectrum is not available in every state for the DVB-H standard. But perhaps the biggest challenge to interoperability will be the different encryption standards selected by various EU states and telecoms operators.” The Commission has not addressed these major barriers to interoperability.

· T-DMB spectrum is available now: Unlike DVB-H, which will have to wait up to five years for spectrum to become available in many countries, T-DMB allows the majority of European states to roll out mobile TV services right now, without delay. It is also compatible with DAB for audio radio services, allowing a very flexible approach to digital broadcasting with minimal investment risk.

· Multi-standard chips already available: Interoperable silicon chips have already been developed so that years before DVB-H spectrum is available in some states, receivers capable of delivering DAB, T-DMB and DVB-H via one chip will be available. Leading semiconductor manufacturer, Samsung Electronics, has already announced a chipset which supports multi digital mobile TV standards, including DVB-H/T, DAB-IP, ISDB-T and T-DMB for multiple standards in different countries. Other mobile TV chip companies such as Frontier Silicon, Siano and Sharp have already announced multi-standard chips for mobile devices.

“T-DMB ticks all the Commission’s boxes when it comes to mobile TV broadcasting. It has been adopted by many countries in Europe and beyond; spectrum is already available for immediate roll out; it is already interoperable with DAB and DAB-IP. Being a European technology, developed from EU funding and ratified in ETSI standards, many high-tech European companies and jobs have already been created to support T-DMB2,” concludes WorldDMB. “Given that the industry is already moving towards multi-standard receiver technology and that T-DMB and DAB-IP are already being used for mobile TV in Europe , as has DBV-H, the Commission should explain its logic in excluding successful European standards from its list.”
John Williamson